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The Hydrogen Fusion Process

In the basic Hydrogen fusion cycle, four Hydrogen nuclei come together to make a Helium nucleus. This is the simple version of the story. There are actually electrons, neutrinos and photons involved in the story that make the fusion of Hydrogen into Helium possible.

The important thing to remember is that this fusion cycle releases energy in the core of a star. This energy keeps the star hot and makes it shine (like our Sun does).

This whole process happens in three steps. There are animations of the three steps below to help you understand this process!

Movies courtesy of University of Oregon

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